The Illuminate, from my experience (and what I've seen) are likely going to be an explosive resistant army. Harvesters and Overseers especially because of their ablative armor and their ability to shrug off explosive damage. However, weapons like the crossbow and grenade launcher deal damage directly to their HP pool instead of the armor pool. In the famous words of Bethesda "It's not a bug, its a feature!" And I think this is very much the case.
I haven’t seen a harvester tank a railcannon , but I have seen the railcannon come in at an angle where it missed the body entirely and hits the ground right between the middle of its legs
I love the Autocannon against them the most, for a support weapon. The flak mode gets rid of Watchers and elevated overseers easily and has great grouping potential against the voteless. The regular mode also deals with Harvesters and Overseers nicely, and it also helps destroy ships quite easily. Funny thing such a weapon is A or S tier against all factions
You can achieve the same with just one gas or incen grenade, speaking about mowing down an entire street of Voteless. And picking it to destroy shield.. might as well pick something that destroys it outright. It's great but I wouldn't say S tier either.
@@K1NG_of_ReVeNGe1 1 guy with a strafing run isn't amazing - it can kill unshielded harvesters in 1 run though. real fun starts when you're two guys with it and coordinate a 1 second delay because the BRRRRRT BRRRRRT will take out everything in the path including shielded harvesters.
The harvesters have I think significant damage reduction on their “top carapace” so orbital Strats often hit that and don’t hurt it as much. I reckon the EMS strike is paying for the fact that its HD1 version (stasis field) was the single meta pick that everyone brought because it could stun everything and lingered for a long time.
I think I know why the rail cannon doesn’t one shot the harvesters. I believe their armor plating that surrounds their main body is similar to the overseers’. It has to be stripped before any real damage can be dealt. In this case, the armor plates are AP4, 75% durable, and take 800HP to strip. That’s not all though, they also only transfer 5% of damage received to the main health pool (3000HP). The railcannon strike will deal 7500 damage to the armor with durable damage accounted for, and strip the armor where it hits; However, only 5% of that 7500 damage will apply to the main healthpool. That means the harvester (at 3000hp) will only take 375 damage from a railcannon strike because its armor plating is ridiculous. Testing is probably needed to confirm this too, but this is my best guess as to why they feel really tanky against a lot of stratagems.
Your commitment to both Helldivers content and your cat, makes me your target demographic. I love how you maintain your cat on screen... just because. lol
So idk what’s going on with explosive damage and tripods other than they have a lot of health and the limbs are explosive immune, but the reason railcannon doesn’t kill it is because it has an armor shell around it like the factory strider, so no matter what the first direct hit will never kill it on the head but a follow up one will
In the case of the mechs, i believe you need to invert where they are placed. A single rocket (assuming you have practiced aiming) to a harvester's leg joint can kill the target, the shield can be popped with a single rocket as well, and its minigun is great against the overseers/voteless, while an emancipator generally takes around 20% ammo.
I saw a teammate throw a railcannon strike at a harvester, and it looked like it aimed below it, and then missed the harvester completely, as it hit the ground directly below it
Soo, 3 most powerful stratagems vs squid is not S tier.. i am talking about walking barrage, gas strike and laser canon. Laser canon is basically killing everything illuminates has right now in no time, easy. Napalm barrage in the city is cancer.
I hope they keep the explosive resist on the Illuminate big boys because it really shakes up the meta where Airstrike and 500kg sort of run the entire game
The same explosive resist that stupid reinforced scout striders have? And look how it ended, look how severely they nerfed rocket striders (rightfully so). I know they didn't touch explosive resistance but they nerfed them to the point where it doesn't really matter anymore. Normal eagle I'm fine with not killing harvesters and why would you take eagle in a city anyway. But 500kg - come on now
This is really the most understandable and best list I've seen. I would put the flame thrower higher and probably the g launcher, but I can see why they're in the place they are.
Can we appreciate how best tools against illuminate are the same tools we were saying struggle to find a nieche for themselves before illuminate release? ARs are good, mgs are good, guard dogs are good... I think that was intentional to promote the usage of gemeralist weapons and strats when the other factions promote specialised ones more
The upper legs are 100% immune to explosives damage and don't have any armor plating. Also the shield generators cant be broken with explosive damage only impact. If this isn't a bug its very odd and inconsistent.
Part of me hopes that Arrowhead allows the RR to one shot Harvesters to the face since it's currently the Charger/Hulk type enemy type of the Illuminate. I don't think it would necessarily kill loadout diversity, as the MG or AMR still also allow for dealing with Overseers and Harvesters together, but if/when we get additional enemy units to deal with, quickly killing Harvesters is going to be important. You would still be able to kill them with other AT options in the leg, but you don't have to give up your backpack to do so.
I still believe that orbital rail gun should be changed into: -15/30s cooldown and+10000% damage. Sas long as we don't have boss monsters that wouldn't be a problem, it would just assure it does it's job no matter what
I shall edit throughout the video depending on if I disagree with stuff. Walking Barrage is S tier. Consistently and easily taking out every and all encampments without even being present is too strong. Also works great when they call reinforcements, I've taken out some of their ships midair with OWB strikes. Laser is at *least* A tier, even with 3 uses. Orbital Napalm Barrage is B tier at max. It doesn't have the destructive power to destroy ships, for iillumimate ships you have SAM's *everywhere* and for the normal hordes the cooldown is too high. Both Guard Dogs are S tier. I HATE them for teamkilling potential but on Illuminates they are insane. I much prefer the Rover. Machine Gun Sentry is S tier and I stand by that, always carry it. You can constantly throw it. Kills everything except Harvesters with ease (and I've seen it take out Harvesters a few times already) Flamethrower is S tier and I'm tired of UA-camrs saying "YoU nEeD aRc ResIsTanCe!" No you don't, circle it, stay moving, done. I never get hit by that inaccurate Zap. HMG is S tier. I much prefer it over the regular MG. No need for a certain Armor. For Harvesters, go prone. Overseers take like 3 hits to kill so Accuracy is a non-factor. But I can see why people prefer the MG. And lastly, Arc Thrower is S tier. Hordes, Overseers, Watchers - all a non-factor. And Harvesters get stunlocked for your mates to shoot the legs, or just invest one minute and you can drop it yourself. Overall an entertaining video, even though I had these disagreements.
Overall good list. I will say though the orbital napalm is not S tier for Illuminate. Bugs, absolutely. Not the illuminate because the cool down and speed of the illuminate troops. The cluster bomb does an even better job and has a significantly higher uptime. That being said, I don't think you are taking overall uptime into consideration. The amount of screen time and DPS the Machine Sentry puts out easily makes it one of the best strats for the Illuminate. Pair it with the Rochket Sentry and you are killing everything they have to offer. Last note, and a HUGE one. Stun grenades stun Harvesters making them an absolute joke. Really, stuns plus machine gun, lib pen backpack, and 2 Sentry and you will delete everything while not having to get up from the prone
I've seen so many amazing situation where 1 orbital napalm wiped out 100+ voteless/T2 unites very similar situations to the bug breaches! All you have to do is aim at the harvesters everything else is dead!
taking out shields with the laser cannon _does_ take forever - shield regen at 250 hp per second when not broken and LC deals 350 damage per second. i brought the dagger once and it just cannot at all break energy shields. once the shield is down it is a comfy kill though.
I run into problems with the mg43 in like extract scenarios that I can't get it reloaded. The harvesters are so easy to deal with that I just prefer the stalwart in basically all scenarios
Once the rest of the faction releases, I hope we get some armor/HP tweaks on the overseers, harvesters, and ufo ships. Idk they just feel a bit clunky and weirdly inconsistent rn. It feels wack having to sink 3 autocannon or CHARGED rail gun shots into such a small enemy. Harvesters just need to be more susceptible to explosive damage. And the ground ufos I feel would be better suited to have a health pool similar to the bot fabricators to incentivize more use with anti tank weapons. And the flying ufos feels very inconsistent to shoot down, even when you are aiming when the hole opens up. I almost feel like these are intentional by arrowhead, as honesty if these changes were implemented right now with the limited enemy variety, I could see this faction being WAY too easy to deal with. But once they start adding those crazy old units from HD1 and the leaked new ones, then I think those tweaks will be appropriate.
I find the mones soo good against the illuminate especially at extraction. Place it in choke points then they cant get through and all you need to worry about are the jetpack overseers and harvesters
For me, Tesla Tower is a clear S tier stratagem, or at least very high A. Positioned properly, it trivialises all objectives until a Tripod notices it - but that's a problem for all placeables.
If it didnt have 3 uses and only that long cooldown id 100% agree (honestly probably S tier) but the 3 uses really limit it, hope the devs look into changing that!
I find the SAM sites to be quite unreliable for taking down all dropships reliably before they drop their teams. It feels like every other mission, there is something that prevents the SAM from being reliable, such as buildings, distance, or terrain. I basically think you're overrating the effectiveness of the SAM, so the recoilless should be much higher, being one of the only weapons that can quickly destroy both Harvesters and dropships
Id swap the 380 with the walking barrage bring the cluster down to b tier move the gas and eagle strafe up to S but aside from that i agree with the vast majority
iluminates are literaly the strongest faction by far it got the strongest tjings from both other factions anoying ranged and stuns from automatons and insane swarming like terminids
Problem is at the moment we just don't really need AT outside a few watchers that really dont even need AT to be taken down, its a great choice but there are a bunch of other options that do more! Solid A tier!
I only play on controller on PC, and the machine gun is clunky to use without peaque physique tbh. I absolutely hate any precision weapon 😒 AMR, and similar are also bad. The handling of many weapons on the controller is just atrocious.
FOR THE SUPER EMPORER, AND ROCK AND STONE
DID I HEAR A ROCK AND STONE?
ROCK AND STONE TO THE BONE
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Your tier lists are the ones I trust the most
1900h+ of Illuminate fighting experience in a week? Damn you're good at your time mmanagement.
Helldivers are so good they gain 3 hours of experience per 1 hour of fighting!
The Illuminate, from my experience (and what I've seen) are likely going to be an explosive resistant army. Harvesters and Overseers especially because of their ablative armor and their ability to shrug off explosive damage. However, weapons like the crossbow and grenade launcher deal damage directly to their HP pool instead of the armor pool. In the famous words of Bethesda "It's not a bug, its a feature!" And I think this is very much the case.
I haven’t seen a harvester tank a railcannon , but I have seen the railcannon come in at an angle where it missed the body entirely and hits the ground right between the middle of its legs
you mean railcannon?
@@gogo8965yeah my bad
Seen it a couple of times. Hits top of head, staggers and doesn’t kill.
I love the Autocannon against them the most, for a support weapon. The flak mode gets rid of Watchers and elevated overseers easily and has great grouping potential against the voteless. The regular mode also deals with Harvesters and Overseers nicely, and it also helps destroy ships quite easily.
Funny thing such a weapon is A or S tier against all factions
Not putting strafing run in S tier should be courtmartial
You can achieve the same with just one gas or incen grenade, speaking about mowing down an entire street of Voteless.
And picking it to destroy shield.. might as well pick something that destroys it outright. It's great but I wouldn't say S tier either.
@@K1NG_of_ReVeNGe1 1 guy with a strafing run isn't amazing - it can kill unshielded harvesters in 1 run though. real fun starts when you're two guys with it and coordinate a 1 second delay because the BRRRRRT BRRRRRT will take out everything in the path including shielded harvesters.
Wow another great tier list video so soon! Thank maple!!
The harvesters have I think significant damage reduction on their “top carapace” so orbital Strats often hit that and don’t hurt it as much.
I reckon the EMS strike is paying for the fact that its HD1 version (stasis field) was the single meta pick that everyone brought because it could stun everything and lingered for a long time.
I think I know why the rail cannon doesn’t one shot the harvesters. I believe their armor plating that surrounds their main body is similar to the overseers’. It has to be stripped before any real damage can be dealt. In this case, the armor plates are AP4, 75% durable, and take 800HP to strip. That’s not all though, they also only transfer 5% of damage received to the main health pool (3000HP). The railcannon strike will deal 7500 damage to the armor with durable damage accounted for, and strip the armor where it hits; However, only 5% of that 7500 damage will apply to the main healthpool.
That means the harvester (at 3000hp) will only take 375 damage from a railcannon strike because its armor plating is ridiculous.
Testing is probably needed to confirm this too, but this is my best guess as to why they feel really tanky against a lot of stratagems.
very lame if that's it
Your commitment to both Helldivers content and your cat, makes me your target demographic. I love how you maintain your cat on screen... just because. lol
The standard eagle strike isn’t being used because it does a horizontal strike and people are running vertically down a street.
So idk what’s going on with explosive damage and tripods other than they have a lot of health and the limbs are explosive immune, but the reason railcannon doesn’t kill it is because it has an armor shell around it like the factory strider, so no matter what the first direct hit will never kill it on the head but a follow up one will
In the case of the mechs, i believe you need to invert where they are placed. A single rocket (assuming you have practiced aiming) to a harvester's leg joint can kill the target, the shield can be popped with a single rocket as well, and its minigun is great against the overseers/voteless, while an emancipator generally takes around 20% ammo.
I saw a teammate throw a railcannon strike at a harvester, and it looked like it aimed below it, and then missed the harvester completely, as it hit the ground directly below it
Soo, 3 most powerful stratagems vs squid is not S tier.. i am talking about walking barrage, gas strike and laser canon. Laser canon is basically killing everything illuminates has right now in no time, easy. Napalm barrage in the city is cancer.
Napalm barrage is truly cancer but I love it on bugs
I hope they keep the explosive resist on the Illuminate big boys because it really shakes up the meta where Airstrike and 500kg sort of run the entire game
The same explosive resist that stupid reinforced scout striders have? And look how it ended, look how severely they nerfed rocket striders (rightfully so). I know they didn't touch explosive resistance but they nerfed them to the point where it doesn't really matter anymore. Normal eagle I'm fine with not killing harvesters and why would you take eagle in a city anyway. But 500kg - come on now
Sweet, always look forward to these videos. Can't wait for the primary weapon illum version.
This is really the most understandable and best list I've seen. I would put the flame thrower higher and probably the g launcher, but I can see why they're in the place they are.
Thank you for this list I don't have a ton of time to play and test shit and your vids always help me pick out which cheat code I should use
Can we appreciate how best tools against illuminate are the same tools we were saying struggle to find a nieche for themselves before illuminate release? ARs are good, mgs are good, guard dogs are good...
I think that was intentional to promote the usage of gemeralist weapons and strats when the other factions promote specialised ones more
isn't EMS blast supposed to remove the shield? according to starcraft...
The harvester isn't bugged. they just have armor plating that transfers 5% of damage through, it needs to be broken first for orbitals and eagles
The upper legs are 100% immune to explosives damage and don't have any armor plating. Also the shield generators cant be broken with explosive damage only impact. If this isn't a bug its very odd and inconsistent.
Part of me hopes that Arrowhead allows the RR to one shot Harvesters to the face since it's currently the Charger/Hulk type enemy type of the Illuminate. I don't think it would necessarily kill loadout diversity, as the MG or AMR still also allow for dealing with Overseers and Harvesters together, but if/when we get additional enemy units to deal with, quickly killing Harvesters is going to be important. You would still be able to kill them with other AT options in the leg, but you don't have to give up your backpack to do so.
This video’s gonna be a popular one
I still believe that orbital rail gun should be changed into: -15/30s cooldown and+10000% damage. Sas long as we don't have boss monsters that wouldn't be a problem, it would just assure it does it's job no matter what
Putting railgun in B when it can 2-tap the legs of a harvester and 1-tap headshot overseers is a crime
I shall edit throughout the video depending on if I disagree with stuff.
Walking Barrage is S tier. Consistently and easily taking out every and all encampments without even being present is too strong. Also works great when they call reinforcements, I've taken out some of their ships midair with OWB strikes.
Laser is at *least* A tier, even with 3 uses.
Orbital Napalm Barrage is B tier at max. It doesn't have the destructive power to destroy ships, for iillumimate ships you have SAM's *everywhere* and for the normal hordes the cooldown is too high.
Both Guard Dogs are S tier. I HATE them for teamkilling potential but on Illuminates they are insane. I much prefer the Rover.
Machine Gun Sentry is S tier and I stand by that, always carry it. You can constantly throw it. Kills everything except Harvesters with ease (and I've seen it take out Harvesters a few times already)
Flamethrower is S tier and I'm tired of UA-camrs saying "YoU nEeD aRc ResIsTanCe!" No you don't, circle it, stay moving, done. I never get hit by that inaccurate Zap.
HMG is S tier. I much prefer it over the regular MG. No need for a certain Armor. For Harvesters, go prone. Overseers take like 3 hits to kill so Accuracy is a non-factor. But I can see why people prefer the MG.
And lastly, Arc Thrower is S tier. Hordes, Overseers, Watchers - all a non-factor. And Harvesters get stunlocked for your mates to shoot the legs, or just invest one minute and you can drop it yourself.
Overall an entertaining video, even though I had these disagreements.
i didnt test all the weapons vs illuminate but the ones i did i can agree with your tier list its pretty good one
7:54 I have said that multiple times as well, it would be a nice little buff even if it is only for one faction
Overall good list. I will say though the orbital napalm is not S tier for Illuminate. Bugs, absolutely. Not the illuminate because the cool down and speed of the illuminate troops. The cluster bomb does an even better job and has a significantly higher uptime.
That being said, I don't think you are taking overall uptime into consideration. The amount of screen time and DPS the Machine Sentry puts out easily makes it one of the best strats for the Illuminate. Pair it with the Rochket Sentry and you are killing everything they have to offer.
Last note, and a HUGE one. Stun grenades stun Harvesters making them an absolute joke. Really, stuns plus machine gun, lib pen backpack, and 2 Sentry and you will delete everything while not having to get up from the prone
I've seen so many amazing situation where 1 orbital napalm wiped out 100+ voteless/T2 unites very similar situations to the bug breaches! All you have to do is aim at the harvesters everything else is dead!
@@MaplewoodLIVE Exactly the napalm is so good especially solo. It also deals significant damage to the harvesters.
taking out shields with the laser cannon _does_ take forever - shield regen at 250 hp per second when not broken and LC deals 350 damage per second. i brought the dagger once and it just cannot at all break energy shields. once the shield is down it is a comfy kill though.
I run into problems with the mg43 in like extract scenarios that I can't get it reloaded. The harvesters are so easy to deal with that I just prefer the stalwart in basically all scenarios
Awww, that's a nice kat
Once the rest of the faction releases, I hope we get some armor/HP tweaks on the overseers, harvesters, and ufo ships. Idk they just feel a bit clunky and weirdly inconsistent rn. It feels wack having to sink 3 autocannon or CHARGED rail gun shots into such a small enemy. Harvesters just need to be more susceptible to explosive damage. And the ground ufos I feel would be better suited to have a health pool similar to the bot fabricators to incentivize more use with anti tank weapons. And the flying ufos feels very inconsistent to shoot down, even when you are aiming when the hole opens up. I almost feel like these are intentional by arrowhead, as honesty if these changes were implemented right now with the limited enemy variety, I could see this faction being WAY too easy to deal with. But once they start adding those crazy old units from HD1 and the leaked new ones, then I think those tweaks will be appropriate.
I find the mones soo good against the illuminate especially at extraction. Place it in choke points then they cant get through and all you need to worry about are the jetpack overseers and harvesters
For me, Tesla Tower is a clear S tier stratagem, or at least very high A. Positioned properly, it trivialises all objectives until a Tripod notices it - but that's a problem for all placeables.
Not putting the arc thrower / Stalwart as S tier is a sign of treason.
orbital laser shreds the walkers and everything else, A tier
If it didnt have 3 uses and only that long cooldown id 100% agree (honestly probably S tier) but the 3 uses really limit it, hope the devs look into changing that!
@ pace it: opening rush, objective, extract
it shreds all types of lumees
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I find the SAM sites to be quite unreliable for taking down all dropships reliably before they drop their teams. It feels like every other mission, there is something that prevents the SAM from being reliable, such as buildings, distance, or terrain. I basically think you're overrating the effectiveness of the SAM, so the recoilless should be much higher, being one of the only weapons that can quickly destroy both Harvesters and dropships
Id swap the 380 with the walking barrage bring the cluster down to b tier move the gas and eagle strafe up to S but aside from that i agree with the vast majority
i honestly think the jump pack is S. u can get out of so many sticky situations and also go on top of roofs and just snipe the whole city
iluminates are literaly the strongest faction by far it got the strongest tjings from both other factions anoying ranged and stuns from automatons and insane swarming like terminids
Strafing run, 500kg, las guard dog, commando with purifier and redeemer - been drppping 600+ kills every game
Dude, in another year these videos are gonna be two hours long. Lol.
I would put straining in a I run it with the commando and shuttles and harvesters are super easy to take out.
Commando can oneshot harvesters (without shield) i think it should be higher
Problem is at the moment we just don't really need AT outside a few watchers that really dont even need AT to be taken down, its a great choice but there are a bunch of other options that do more! Solid A tier!
Idk man I think I like the idea of playing this game & watching it more than actually playing it. I absolutely suck lol
Buff the gas weapons immediately
Supply backpack is D tier because the cities are so full of supplies, its just a complete waste of a slot.
While there's lots of ammo there's not a lot of stims (only getting 2 stims back per box) also nades are just amazing vs all the voteless!
@MaplewoodLIVE you don't need stims VS illuminate.
Orbital HE Orbital barrage fire laser dog qsar and sentry
EMS = ElectroMagnetic Stuff
Shoulder cat! 🥰
Gas Orbital is better than OPS
I only play on controller on PC, and the machine gun is clunky to use without peaque physique tbh. I absolutely hate any precision weapon 😒 AMR, and similar are also bad. The handling of many weapons on the controller is just atrocious.
Emp motars